BMLL
Technologies hired Karen King as its new Head of Sales for Asia Pacific, giving
the market data company a senior executive to push into a region where it
recently added nine new exchange feeds.
BMLL Taps Karen King to
Lead Asia Pacific Expansion
King will
work from Hong Kong to build BMLL’s client roster across the region and shape
how the company approaches growth in Asian markets, according to the press
release sent to FinanceMagnates.com.
The
appointment comes roughly two months after Nordic Capital acquired BMLL in a
deal that included existing minority shareholder Optiver.
The timing also
reflects BMLL’s recent buildout across Asia. Over the past 14 months, the
company added data from Shanghai, Bombay, ASX 24 futures and others. Those
additions let traders and exchanges compare order book behavior across venues
globally, something BMLL CEO Paul Humphrey says creates demand for deeper
analytics.
“Following
Nordic Capital’s investment in BMLL, we are focused on accelerating the
company’s next phase of growth,” Humphrey said. “Asia Pacific is a
key part of that wider strategy as we aim to better serve our customers across
the region.”
This wasn’t
the only executive move this week. Former B2C2
sales executive Zeke Vince joined Robinhood as Global Head of Business Development
for institutional crypto.
Two Decades of Data Sales
Experience
King spent
more than 20 years in financial services and data solutions, most recently as
Managing Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence after that company
merged with IHS Markit. She originally joined through IHS Markit’s acquisition
of Data Explorers, where she worked with buy-side and sell-side clients across
Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
Earlier in
her career, King worked in Prime Brokerage at Goldman Sachs in London, covering
Southeast Asian clients. That background gives her experience on both the
trading floor and the data vendor side of the business.
“BMLL
has seen increasing demand from market participants looking to optimize trading
strategies, improve execution outcomes and gain deeper insight into market behavior,”
King said.
The company
introduced its
first execution analytics dataset built with direct client input in October, addressing coding
challenges that trading firms face when analyzing order flow. In July,
BMLL partnered with
Ultumus to cut ETF spreads by 16% in initial tests by combining reference data with market
analytics.
Broader
Push Into Derivatives
BMLL
provides what it calls Level 3 data covering global equities, ETFs, futures and
US equity options. The company harmonizes this data across venues so
researchers can apply statistical techniques without building their own
infrastructure to clean and standardize raw feeds.
Humphrey
framed King’s appointment as part of a larger emphasis on derivatives coverage
worldwide. The Nordic Capital deal, completed in October 2025, followed a $21
million investment led by Optiver
in October 2024. Before that, BMLL raised $26 million in Series B funding
during 2022-2023 and $36 million across earlier seed and Series A rounds.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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